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India
History Having dissolved the Indian National Congress in August 1942 due to its ties with Japan, Great Britain approached the rivals of Congress to aid them in administering the Raj. In Muslim-majority provinces, the Muslim League of Muhammad Ali Jinnah was allowed to take power and federate the provinces into Pakistan. In the Punjab, the Sikh Shiromani Akali Dal was granted a measure of power. In the Hindu-majority parts of the Raj, local power was handed to the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, the foremost Hindu-nationalist grouping, and its allies. RSS and other militias were used to put down the Japanese-backed Congress insurgency, while they also purged non-Hindu minorities from regions under their control. Sikhs, Jains and Buddhists were considered part of the Hindu Nation and so were relatively safe, while Christians enjoyed the protection of Great Britain, so the Muslims bore the brunt of RSS violence. The reward of the RSS was autonomous Dominion status for a Confederacy of Hindustan in 1957. Independence had been indefinitely delayed during the war, and for the duration of the Churchill administration remained an impossibility. Churchill's resignation in March 1957 in the wake of a colonial disaster, and his replacement by Sir Oswald Mosley, made Indian independence a certainty (neither Churchill nor Enoch Powell, then Viceroy, ever forgave Mosley for the loss of India). The costs to Great Britain of continued fighting on the sub-continent were too great to bear, while Germany was no longer able or willing to prop up both Britain and France in South-East Asia and South Asia simultaneously. Madhav Sadashiv Golwalkar, known as Param Pujaniya Guruji or the 'Sarsanghchalak' (Supreme Chief or 'Fuehrer') of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, was made Viceroy and Governor-General of this new Dominion, with the strongly pro-German Asit Krishna Mukherji serving as his Prime Minister. Golwakar's age and indecision was taken to have been critical in a subsequent war with Pakistan, and as the German nominee, Mukherji replaced him in 1972. Mukherji was replaced by his wife, Savitri Devi Mukherji, after his death in 1977. Despite being a woman and foreign-born in this fiercely patriarchal and nationalistic society, the sucession of Devi reflects both the importance of dynastic or clan based politics, as well as the influence of Germany on India. Devi was in turn replaced by a period of collective leadership under Lal Krishna Advani and Bal Keshav Thackeray, the so-called Lal-Bal coalition, with Nathuram Godse, the long-time Interior Minister, installed as Premier. The Dominion is a Confederacy of regions ruled directly by the RSS and former Princely States. The monarchies of the Princely States still have substantial power, apart from Muslim dynasties, such as the Nizams of Hyderabad and the Nawabs of Bhopal, which were exiled during the First Indo-Pakistani War of 1957 to 1958. Sikh and Buddhist, as well as Hindu, dynasties are considered 'indigenous to India' and have mostly been retained. Some Princely States declined to join either Pakistan or India, though most of these were quickly integrated through force, sometimes leading to the abolition of their monarchies, or simply to the deposition of the offending monarch. The most populous and influential Princely State is that carved out of the former Crown Colony of Burma. Burma was handed to independent India as compensation for the loss of Pakistan. Burma became a single political unit, abolishing the various small states it had been divided into under the British. Under the governorship of U Saw, the monarchy of Burma was restored in the person of Princess Myat Phaya, daughter of the last king of Burma, King Thibaw. She expected to be succeeded by her son Prince Edward Taw Phaya, but when she died in 1962, power passed to a regency under Ne Win, who married Princess June Yadana Nat-Mei the following year to legitimise his claim on the throne. List of major States of the Confederacy of Hindustan *Burma: majority Buddhist state (population c.19,000,000). Ruled by the Buddhist Konbaung Dynasty, in the person of Princess Yadana Nat-Mei, granddaughter of King Tharrawaddy, from 1963. *Mysore: majority Hindu state (population c.6,000,000). Ruled by the Wadiyar Dynasty in the person of Maharajah Jayachama Wadiyar from 1940. *Jammu-Kashmir: mixed population of Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs and Buddhists (population c.3,000,000). Ruled by Maharajah Hari Singh from 1925 to 1961, when he was succeeded by his son Karan Singh. *Baroda: majority Hindu state, ruled by the Maratha Gaekwad Dynasty in the person of Maharajah Pratap Singh Gaekwad from 1939 to 1968 and by his son Fateh Singh Rao Gaekwad from 1968 onwards. *Gwalior: majority Hindu state, ruled by the Maratha Scindia Dynasty in the person of Maharajah George Jivaji Rao Scindia from 1925 to 1961 and by a regency for his daughter Maharani Vasundhara from 1961 onwards. *Indore: majority Hindu state, ruled by the Maratha Holkar Dynasty in the person of Yeshwant Rao Holkar II from 1926 to 1961 and by his son Richard Shivaji Rao Holkar from 1961 onwards. *Dewas-Kolhapur: majority Hindu state, ruled by the Maratha Puar Dynasty in the person of Maharaja Shahaji from 1947. *Travancore: majority Hindu state, ruled by the Maharajah Chithira Thirunal Balarama Varma from 1924. *Mewar-Udaipur: majoirty Hindu state, ruled by the Mewar Sisodias Dynasty in the person of Maharajah Baghwat Singh Mewar from 1955 onwards.